At a friend's wedding in Colorado, the photographer collected email addresses. After the wedding, I received an email, "Click here to view pictures from Annalissa and Dan's wedding!" I was given a slideshow of the happy occasion, with the option to purchase any picture in any size I wanted.

Online Photo Galleries

Online photo sharing isn't just for businesses. Share pictures easily with friends and family. While an Internet connection, digital camera and computer come in handy, they're not required. The focus is on simplicity: If you've taken one hundred vacation pictures and want to share them, creating a website or starting a blog wouldn't be worth the effort. Emailing so many pictures would fill up email accounts and take forever to download. Specialized services and equipment make this whole process simple for everyone involved.

http://www.kodakgallery.com
Kodakgallery is an online photo sharing service focusing on turning online photos into something else, like archive CDs and photo albums. While the usual photo reprint services are available, you can also put your photos on puzzles, playing cards, holiday ornaments, photo canvases, greeting cards, stickers, and leather-bound photo albums. Membership is free, assuming you make one purchase yearly. If you don't log on to your account after 5 years, your account will be cancelled.

http://www.flickr.com
Share your photos publicly, or give password access to a special group of people. Anyone can leave comments on your pictures. Group photo pools allow many people who've taken pictures to put them all in one place for group sharing. It's easy to share photos taken with a cellphone: Use your cellphone to email photos to a special email address, and they'll be added to your collection automatically. Basic subscription is free, limited by picture quality reduction, ad displays, and limits on how many pictures you can upload per month. For $25 yearly, you get ad-free usage, full-quality picture displays, and unlimited storage.

http://www.snapfish.com
Snapfish emphasizes printing and development. Yes, they allow you to privately share pictures online, but they also develop 35-mm picture rolls for $3 plus shipping. The pictures are posted online for your perusal, and you and your invitees can order prints. Prices range from 12 cents each for 4x6 photos to $3 for an 8x10 print. You have limited picture editing, as well as the ability to use photos to create mugs, calendars, mousepads and notebooks. Online photo archiving is free with least one purchase (like film developing or a photo print) per year.

http://www.kodakmobile.com
Save all your digital pictures online, then use Kodak Mobile to send pictures to any cellphone. For $36 per year, you can use your phone as a remote photo album – use it to access online digital photos. Kodak Mobile is interconnected with Kodakgallery.com. If you already have an account there, you can use your cellphone to view your entire online gallery.

Digital picture frames

You've got lots of pictures, but don't want them online. You want them in your home, in a picture frame. Or give someone the gift of memories, a special digital picture frame displaying any pictures you want.

http://www.ceiva.com
Ceiva sells "digital photo receivers", small LCD monitors communicating with a service via a telephone line. The monitor periodically calls a local number to load new pictures. The end result is a constantly changing picture slideshow in a single photo frame. The digital picture frames can display a slideshow of up to 30 pictures at once. Every day, it connects to Ceiva and loads 30 new pictures from a pool of up to 2000. Alternate plans allow purchase of multiple picture frames to share photos with more friends and family, and the ability to use home broadband Internet connections (allowing for much faster photo downloads). Subscription plans for this service start at $100 per year, and require purchase of digital photo receivers at $100 each. Cheaper plans are available for extended subscriptions and multiple receiver purchases.

http://www.wallflower-systems.com/products/wf2-main.htm
So you don't want to pay for a continual subscription, but you'd still like a digital picture frame. Check out the "Wallflower 2". It connects automatically to your home wireless network, and you can easily send photos to the unit with your computer, or allow anyone to send it pictures via email. It stores and plays MP3 files, for when pictures or parties need background music. It displays news items (gathered via your internet connection) in addition to the photos. The Wallflower's 30GB of storage allows you to store and display over ten thousand digital photos. Prices start at $860.

http://www.photovu.com
Check out Photovu for digital picture frames with quality workmanship and high customizability. These large frames can be placed on tables, stands or mounted on walls. They have no internal storage, but are meant to be connected to USB drives or your home network (wired or wireless) to display photos. Prices start at $850. Extended warranty plans are available.

http://www.pacificdigital.com/products/mf.asp
For more affordable digital picture frames, see the "MemoryFrame Digital Photo Album". Able to display digital photos, videos and music, you have options for 5x7 or 8x10 models. While networking options are available, you'll at least need a digital camera. The MemoryFrame is compatible with most popular memory sticks, so it should be able to easily display your digital pictures. When purchased from resellers like Amazon.com, prices start at around $140.